When we speak of revelation it's usually in reference to either personal or public revelation.
Personal revelation are those insights that individuals receive through worship, study, prayer, visions, or examination of one's attitudes and belief system. The individuals who receive such wisdom often become influential leaders, advancing our understanding of morality, philosophy, and spirit realities. In the sixth century BC, the insights of several spiritual teachers in different locales resulted in a spiritual awakening. For example, in Babylon, during the time of the Hebrew captivity, the second Isaiah eclipsed the nationalistic Yahweh by his inspiring portrayal of the majesty and universal omnipotence of the supreme Yahweh, God of love, and ruler of the universe. In India, the insights of the spiritual teacher Siddhartha Gautama were eventually categorized into the "Four Noble Truths" - one of the fundamental teachings of Buddhism. In China, Confucius compiled wise sayings of ancient philosophers that helped replace magic with morality, and establish codes for ancestral conduct that are still venerated today. Over one thousand years later, Muhammad Ibn 'Abdullāh founded the religion of Islam, and the revelations he purportedly received form the verses of the Qur'an.
Personal insights may be meaningful to scores of individuals or people of like mind, but they usually don't contain enough supreme and universal values to advance religious unity and uplift nations. While it's common for people of like faith to effect cooperation on the basis of unity of ideals and purposes, building a collective peace requires that we understand where each worldview fits into the Big Picture of Existence. Such an ambitious goal summons the courage to expand the truth in our beliefs - to expand our ancient concepts of God and the universe. Grand undertakings exact dynamic faith and the willingness to explore new ideas, the substance of public revelation.
Public revelation progressively reveals the personality of God to all of humankind along with our place in the cosmos, guiding us in the long journey of knowing and finding God, and becoming Godlike. Public revelation is knowledge and wisdom from superhuman sources, imparted into the human arena to augment spiritual progress and alleviate confusion. In the absence of progressive revelation, humanity struggles to generate the spirit power that transforms societies. Our planetary crisis attests to the current stagnation of wisdom; current worldviews reflect the failed ideas of recycled belief systems. Existing philosophies and religions no longer foster a reasoning that is increasingly more objective, inclusive, moral, loving, and selfless.
Since prehistoric times revelation has been an active force in our planet. Public revelation, however, has been imparted gradually as humans developed their capacity to understand increasing spiritual knowledge. With the passage of time these revelations commingled with the beliefs and practices of cultural eras and constitute the origin of the world's major religions.
The current status of public revelation reflects a limited knowledge of God combined with relative rejection of science. For example, those who perceive God as synonymous with Jesus Christ, tend to believe that public revelation ended with his bestowal on Earth and with the New Testament.
Similarly, those who perceive matter, energy, and consciousness as an unfolding process that connects us all, tend to reject the personality of God. They call God an impersonal "reality" and relegate him to such things as "nature" and "the universe."
Inaccurate and incomplete knowledge about God is reflected in the quality of our decisions and actions: the indifference we have towards others; the intolerance and hatred that leads the religious extremist to become a suicide bomber in an effort to please God; or the murder of abortion doctors because the killer feels God has called upon him to protect the defenseless.
To increasingly align our thinking and actions with our highest ideals - to grow in our capacity to be more compassionate, inclusive, tolerant, loving, and selfless - we must challenge our intellectual comfort zone and seek to expand our concept of God and the universe. Below are three ideas for attaining increased levels of spirituality:
1. Exploring our beliefs through familiar knowledge. When we explore our beliefs through the study of familiar books and scriptures, we increase the quality of our connection to God. However, when we fixate at a given level of exploration, we risk becoming rigid in our thinking - complacent in one end of the spectrum, fundamentalist in the other.
2. Objectively exploring our beliefs in the light of other belief systems. This opens our understanding of others and we grow in compassion and tolerance.
3. Exploring beliefs in the light of the latest public revelation found in The Urantia Book. Public revelation always augments existing religious traditions and the findings of science; it has the potential to uplift all gospels, resolve the greatest mysteries of human existence, and in the process, create universal harmony. Public revelation can expand the truth in our beliefs by restoring important bits of lost knowledge and filling in vital gaps. Heaven Is Not the Last Stop is the first book to reconcile a wide swath of human knowledge with the Urantia revelation.
We are all faced with a challenging decision: Are we willing to move beyond our apathy and skepticism and systematically explore our beliefs to discover higher meanings and values to live by? This glorious achievement accomplished one person at a time and manifested in our society as growing peace and progress, will bring clarity to our understanding of public revelation and testify to its value in the generations to come.
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